The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire eBook

The news set the people frantic with grief and indignation.
They insisted that the authorities knew that the roof
was unsafe and had neglected their duty. Cursing
and screaming in their intense excitement, they surrounded
the market, endeavoring with frantic haste to remove
the heavy beams from beneath which came the appealing
calls for help, many of the rescuers sobbing aloud
as they worked. It required a large force of
police and soldiers to keep them back and permit the
firemen and other trained workers to carry on more
systematically the work of relief. Twelve persons
proved to have been killed, two fatally injured, twenty-four
seriously hurt and over a hundred badly bruised and
cut. Among these were many children, whose parents
had sent them to do the marketing without a dream
of danger, and the grief of the parents was intense.
The Duke of Aosta, Prefect of Naples, directed the
work of rescue, while his wife assisted in the care
of the injured. As the Duchess bent in the hospital
to give a cooling drink to a badly bruised little
girl she felt a kiss upon her hand. Looking down,
she saw a woman kneeling at her feet, who gratefully
said: “Your Excellency, she is all I have.
I am a widow. May God reward you.”

While this scene of horror was taking place in Naples
the fate of the town and villages grouped around the
foot of the volcano seemed as hopeless as ever.
Early on the 10th the showers of ashes and streams
of lava diminished and almost ceased, but later the
same day they began again, and the terrified inhabitants
feared that a catastrophe like that which buried Pompeii
and Herculaneum was about to visit them. The lava
which reached the cemetery of Torre Annunziata turned
in the direction of Pompeii as if to freshly entomb
that exhumed city of the past. A violent storm
of sulphurous rain fell at San Giuseppe, Vesuviana
and Sariano, and on all sides the fall of sand and
ashes came on again in full strength. Even with
the sun shining high in the heavens the light was
a dim yellow, in the midst of which the few persons
who still haunted the stricken towns moved about in
the awful stillness of desolation like gray ghosts,
their clothing, hair and beards covered with ashes.

THE ERUPTION RESUMED.

A typical case was that of Torre del Greco. Though
for thirty hours the place had been deserted, a few
ghostly figures could be seen at intervals when the
vivid flashes of lightning illuminated the gloom-covered
scene, wandering desolately about, hungry and thirsty,
their throats parched by smoke and dust, yet unable
to tear themselves away from the ruins of their late
comfortable homes.

So deep was the ash fall that railway or tramway travel
to the inner circle of towns was impossible, and the
great depth of fallen dust choked the roads so as
to render travel by carriage or on foot very difficult.
A party of officials made a tour of inspection by automobile,
visiting a number of the town, but were prevented by
the state of the roads from reaching others.
Ottajano was thus cut off from travel, and a heavy
fall of ashes followed the officials in their retreat.
At Bosco Trecase the lava had gathered into a lake,
already growing solid on top, but a mass of liquid
rock beneath.